


Nobody Can Save You Now

by Samking



Series: Time in a Bottle [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Young Avengers
Genre: Angst, M/M, The Cube - Freeform, Torture, mind wipe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4656720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samking/pseuds/Samking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Its been almost twenty years since Wanda gave up her sons, twenty years since the Avengers Civil War. When two young teenagers appear claiming her sons have been captured by the government she will stop at nothing to get them back. But a new revelation will set back all amounts of closure she and the rest of the Avengers team have trying to build for the past twenty years.<br/>Sequel to If Words Could Make Wishes Come True</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Can Save You Now

 

“I want this to stop, I want this to stop, I want this to stop.” Billy repeated those five words over and over again as he watched the doctor slice into Teddy’s stomach once more. “I want this to stop, I want this to stop, I want this to stop.” But the doctor didn’t stop, for once since his powers had developed they’d stopped working. But maybe he wasn’t saying them right, he couldn’t really hear himself, the mad scientist doctor had placed some device over his ears. “Please.” He could feel his mouth shaping the words, hear the words he wanted to say in his head, but he couldn’t hear himself say them. He didn’t know if he was whispering them, or shouting them.

He saw the blood trickle down Teddy’s lower abdomen. He’d begged for this to stop, willed for this to stop and yet the nightmare continued. Cautiously he took his eyes away from Teddy, Teddy who had been there for him from the beginning of their adventures, and looked over at his sort of brother Tommy. Silverish brown hair blocked him from being able to see the speedster’s face, but he was pretty sure Tommy was just pretending to be asleep. Eli and Kate were out there somewhere, avoiding capture, finding help, something. He didn’t think the remaining two members of their team would just leave them here, in the Cube, to die, to be tortured and finally murdered. The Cube was where people with powers went, even those who registered their powers with the government like Teddy had apparently.

“Keep talking boy, but your powers won’t work here. Not with that device on your ears. It blocks out the sound of your voice.” The doctor said, turning to face him for the first time since Billy woke up. The angle the doctor had been while working on Teddy had prevented Billy from seeing too much, but now that the doctor had moved to look at him he could see the long slit that the doctor had cut into his friend, boyfriend, relationship status complicated, Billy wasn’t sure how exactly to describe what he and Teddy were. Officially he’d only met Teddy about a year and a half ago on an anonymous online forum for those who had powers, and those who still supported Steve Rogers’s side despite that he’d been dead for sixteen years at the time, it was eighteen years now. That was how he met Eli as well.

It had been his idea to form a superhero team, his idea to defy the government’s law against all superheroes but ones pre-approved by the government. Kate had decided to join them after they saved her sister’s wedding from the mob, well, Kate had done most of the saving. They’d only just started at that point. Tommy came a little later, he’d been a government run juvenile detention facility for blowing up his school. It’d given everyone quite the shock when they’d stood side by side and revealed just how alike they looked. Tommy started to attempt to bleach it to look different soon after, but then his hair had turned silverish in color. It was odd, but suited the speedster in a way.

If he hadn’t suggested they become a superhero team though, if Eli and Teddy hadn’t agreed to join him, they wouldn’t be here now. They would be safe, he would probably be getting bugged by his mom about college applications. Something mundane, instead they were locked up at a super secret government facility known as the Cube mentioned only in whispers of the superpowered side of the internet, it was where the government locked up the most powerful rogue superhumans. He wouldn’t have put his friend in so much danger. He’d been so stupid to think they wouldn’t attract attention from the government or the Avengers. He closed his eyes and tried to block out everything going on around him, to focus internally and get his powers to work that way. But he couldn’t he kept seeing their capture over and over in his mind. The sounds of Tommy screams as he was caught in an icy blast to slow him down, a bullet going through his right shoulder. Shouting to Eli and Kate, both who had no superpowers to run, there was no reason for the government to go after them as long as they gave up the crime fighting. They probably wouldn’t, Billy knew both of them too well, they were probably looking for a way to get them out right now. The problem with a super secret facility that the government isn’t supposed to have is that it's really hard to secure someone’s release from it the legal ways.

Beautiful blue eyes opened, at first just slightly, and then all at once as the blond registered the pain he was in. No, no, no, Billy shook his head and tried to reach out to his friend only to be held back by the cuffs and chains that held him suspended. “Teddy!” He tried to shout, but he wasn’t sure if he actually said anything. Screams tore out of the bigger boy’s mouth.

“Teddy!” Tommy shouted. “Billy, stop, you’ll only hurt yourself if you pull on them that much.” But his brother’s words has no effect, he just continued to pull and pull until the doctor sedated him as well.

~Avengers~

“Shit.” Wanda heard Bucky cursed as a purple form flew overhead. Vision, damn this just got ten times harder to escape from. The android was from her first mission as an Avenger, a creation of the robot Ultron, and re-created by Tony Stark. It hadn’t come as shock to anybody when he joined Stark’s team when the Avengers broke up, after all both she and Steve had been against his creation in the first place.

“I see him, don’t worry.” She said through the comms, red magic emitted from her hands and wrapped around her and Bucky making them appear as someone else to the untrained eye. The only person she knew of who could see through her magic was a man named Stephen Strange who resided now in England to avoid the superhuman catastrophe over here in the States.

“I hate that robot.” Bucky said. “Stark’s little pet.” Wanda didn’t say anything, once upon a time she had come to like the android, maybe something more, maybe not, they had been teammates after all it was hard to tell. She had trusted him, he’d been the first to know she was pregnant, detected shifting hormone levels or something. She didn’t confirm what he’d said until after Steve’s death. Billy and Tommy, not a day went by in the past sixteen years that she didn’t miss her baby boys. When they were younger she’d go to New York and watch them from afar before that got too dangerous and began to hurt too much. Sam didn’t think it was healthy either.

They hurried along the streets of LA to where the quinjet was waiting in stealth mode. “I saw the robot.” Lincoln said from the pilot seat as they entered. He was an inhuman, a human that wasn’t really human anymore due to aliens interference thousands of years ago or something. Wanda didn’t know all the details, and she really didn’t want to as long as they were on her side. They had superhuman abilities like she did though, none of them had her powers. Daisy had called a her special snowflake. Both were part of a special rogue S.H.I.E.L.D team that was full of superpowered people, mostly inhumans, and that made them an enemy of the government who wanted to regulate and keep tabs on all superpowered people.

“Can you lift off with him in the skies?” Bucky asked strapping him in the seat beside the lightning wielder.

“Yeah, Sam sent a message while you were off scouting, says there’s something back at base that you need to hear.” Bucky glanced at Wanda, she clutched the arms of her seat despising lift off even after nearly twenty years of using the quinjets. She could levitate herself into the air if need be, but she wasn’t fond of machines doing it for her. Sam had taken over leader after Pym’s death about ten years ago and officially joined forces with Coulson’s team of inhumans, before then they had worked together on missions trying to prevent the government from finding out or arresting those with powers. Some they smuggled out of the country, others they trained to be part of their team. Wanda didn’t do a whole lot of fighting anymore, she preferred training new recruits and reconnaissance, but occasionally she did get her hands dirty when the situation called for it.

Sam was waiting for them when they returned to base, with him was Natasha and Clint, none of them looked happy. In fact Sam looked worried, really worried. Had the base been compromised? They’d had to move around a couple of times in past years due to bases being compromised. “Wanda.” Sam said quietly, “There’s something you should know. But before I tell you, I need to know that you will keep your calm. You have to stay in control, okay.” Wanda nodded, reigning in all her powers to a dark corner of her mind. “The government has a secret facility where they keeped superpowered people, humans or otherwise, it’s called the Cube.” Bucky came up stand beside her, a hand on her shoulder to keep both of them grounded. “We’ve just been informed that there is good reason to believe that both Billy and Tommy are there.”

“What?” Wanda cried looking at both Clint and Natasha who both nodded. “How?” Her babies in the Cube, she’d heard about the experiments that went on in there, whispers mostly. No one who’d gone in had ever come back out. She felt herself retreat into her mind leaving the anger she felt to guard her from the outside world. Her babies, the ones she had given up to protect, they were in danger and she needed to think clearly. To be able to plan and operate a rescue mission successfully, and for that she didn’t need her emotions. It wasn't’ the first time she’d locked them away, there were many times while homeless on the Sokovian streets that she had shut away her emotions so she didn’t cry about her parents and the loss of home, or feel guilty about stealing from a street vender, and she had shut them away again during the experiments Hydra had performed on them, the endless nights of screaming on both her and her brother’s parts.

“They were part of a teenage superhero group.” Sam said with a quirked smile. Wanda glanced over at Bucky who was wearing the same mask as she did. “Two of their teammates escaped and found us.” He lead them down the hall to an interrogation room, and opened the door. “Eli, Kate, this is Wanda Maximoff, and Bucky Barnes, they’re going to need to know everything you’ve told me.” Then Sam shut the door and Wanda and Bucky took their seats across from the two kids. Neither of them could be any older than nineteen, what had the been thinking going up against the government like that.

“Holy shit,” Eli said, his dark skin contrasting against Kate’s very pale skin. “You’re the new Captain America.”

“Yes, I am.” Bucky said monotonously. “We’re not here to talk about me though, we need to know what happened to your friends.” Kate raised an eyebrow, and looked over at Wanda.

“Look, I know that you’re probably used to all the hero worship, but the guys on my team, they loved you. They loved you enough they risked their lives to become superheroes like you.” Kate said icily, her words were direct at both of them.

“Bucky can come off cold.” Wanda said warming up a little bit, it wasn’t good to shut away all her emotions, both of these teens were upset, and had every right to be. “Tell me about your team, how long were you active, what powers your teammates had. And we need to know everything about the people who took your teammates away.” She put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder to reassure him. “We’ll find them.”

“Billy started the team.” Eli said, “He, Teddy, and I met on an online forum for kids with superpowers. I don’t actually have superpowers but I support superhumans, I don’t think they should have to register with the government or be locked away. Billy wanted to start a team of superpowered kids, he thought that since we were all young the government wouldn’t be able to lock us away.”

“He was always hopelessly naive.” Kate said quietly. Pietro had been the same way, always telling her things would get better, believing Hydra would truly help them, saving Clint and that little boy. Some things just ran in families. “I joined after they attempted to stop a mob attack on my sister’s wedding. They were hopeless.”

“ _He sounds like Steve_.” Bucky said to her in Russian, Sokovia’s main language had actually been Slovak, but being so close to Ukraine and Russia, most Sokovians could speak Russian as well, which came in handy when needing to talk to either Bucky or Natasha without anyone overhearing them.

“ _Pietro was the same way_.” Wanda murmured back.

“That’s a bit intimidating.” Eli said. “Is that Russian you’re speaking?”

“We need you to focus, tell us more about your group.” Wanda said. “What about Tommy, when did he join your group?”

“We rescued him from a juvenile detention facility. Apparently he blew up a wall at his high school.” Eli said chuckling. “He and Billy look just alike, it was freaky till they both realized they were adopted. Twins separated at birth.” He shook his head, Wanda tensed up and glanced at Bucky who was curling and uncurling his first under the table.

“Tell us about their powers, how much control they have over them.” Bucky said, his voice even.

“Well Tommy has superspeed and he can vibrate so fast he can go through walls.” Kate said. “He’s also a bit of a hothead.” Like Pietro. “Teddy can shape shift, he’s partially some weird alien species that can shape shift called Skrull, and part- what was the other alien race?”

“Kree.” Eli supplied for her. “He was sent to live on Earth to protect him.”

“And Billy’s weird.” Kate said. “He’s got some sort of blue magic powers.” Wanda remembered the only time she’d seen her baby boy use his powers, the blue orb protecting him from the fire his brother had made when he vibrated too fast against the bedsheets. “They got us in an ambush. We thought we were getting people out of a warehouse that caught on fire and was going to explode. They hit Tommy with some kind of gun that spews ice, and then they shot him for good measure.” Wanda blinked back the tears she didn’t want to come, her smiling boy shot, like Pietro had been. The empty void that Pietro had left welled up, trying to consume her. _If you stay here you’ll die. I already did._

“Woah.” Eli said backing his chair away, through the observation window Wanda saw the reflection of the red tendrils that had begun to surround her. With a flick of her wrist and a deep breath they disappeared. Pietro was gone, he’d died twenty years ago, and though sometimes it felt like it had happened only yesterday. _You didn’t see that coming?_ She had hated that phrase as a child, but now she’d give everything to hear her brother say that again. “How did you do that.”

“Sam introduced me as Wanda, but I am better known as the Scarlet Witch. Billy and Tommy are my sons, and we are going to do everything to rescue all three of them. But we need to know everything about their capture.” Wanda said watching their eyes grow big.

~Avengers~

They had been put into separate rooms, but Billy could still hear Teddy screaming sometimes, whether he was imagining it or not he wasn’t quite sure. The room he was in was dark, and he still had the ear devices on so he couldn’t hear himself talking, couldn’t channel his magic. It was hard to know days from nights, and they were only fed sporadically so he couldn’t even tell days that way. This was the Cube, the whispered place that superhumans went to be experimented on. The government’s secret facility. Occasionally the doctor comes in, the one who was there when he first woke up, the one who had been experimenting on Teddy, after all who wouldn’t want to know what the insides of a skrull-kree hybrid looked like. Billy wanted to be sick everytime he came, he always told Billy about Teddy, about what he was doing to Teddy. “You could be very useful to us, William Rogers Kaplan, or should I say Maximoff.” The doctor said emphasizing both the names Rogers and Maximoff as he spoke. What? Maximoff, had that been his birth mother’s last name? It sounded Russian. “I ran some DNA tests on you and Mr. Shepard,” the doctor continued. “I’m sure you’re aware that you’re twins, but did you know that your mother is none other than Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch?” Billy could see the woman with the swirling red tendrils on the news feed, she had once been an Avenger. No one had known her real identity, those files had been deleted during the Avengers’ Civil War, but everyone knew she had originated from Eastern Europe, joining the Avengers just after their battle with Ultron when she lost her brother, a speedster only known by the alias Quicksilver.

“We have her DNA here on file, she and her brother once subjected themselves to Hydra testing.” The doctor continued not caring it seemed if Billy really listened to him or not. “That’s how they got their powers, and she passed her powers to you and her brother’s powers to your brother. How quaint.” The doctor clapped his hands together. “Its her fault we lost our most valuable assassin. But we should thank her, we may have lost the super soldier’s friend, but now we have four more to take his place. Hydra will be unstoppable after this.” Billy shook his head, fighting against the chains that held him in place. He wouldn’t work for Hydra, he’d read what they did, the experiments they’d done. He wouldn’t work for them, and he wouldn’t let them use Tommy or Teddy either.

“Don’t hurt them.” He wanted to say, he wasn’t sure how the word came out though. He’d given up on chanting, after the first time he’d woken up in this cell he’d chanted till his throat was hoarse to no avail.

“You do what we want, and we’ll begin to discuss the fates of Mr. Altman and Mr. Shepard.” The doctor said not even hiding the smirk from his voice.

“What do you want?” He was sure the words had come out barely a whisper, and he looked down at the tile flooring underneath him, the ones his feet barely touched.

“We want you to be the first of a new line of Hydra assassins, one made up of entirely superpowered people.” He’d never killed anyone before, the thought of doing so even to a bad person made his stomach curl, but the thought of doing it for Hydra against people who probably didn’t deserve it was worse. He shook his head, he wouldn’t do it. “Well then, I guess we’ll go with Plan B, Mr. Altman.” No! Billy pulled against his restraints, Teddy was a good person, the best kind of person, one with a good heart, filled with kindness. Hydra would destroy that. “Think it over, Mr. Kaplan, I’ll be back soon to hear your answer.” Then the doctor was gone, and Billy was alone with his thoughts.

They wanted them to become Hydra assassins, him first, the others later. He wasn’t so naive as to believe that they wouldn’t convert Teddy and Tommy later on once he was was firmly in their grasps. Hopefully they wouldn’t know what happened to him, hopefully they would think he was still locked up too. They would kill him if they knew he would sacrifice himself to buy them more time, Eli and Kate would find help. They were resourceful. They might not have the time to save him, but they would be able to save Teddy and Tommy, and that was enough for him to make his decision. He hung his head in shame of what he was going to do, what he would be forced to do. He didn’t know a lot of the details about the Winter Soldier project that had been leaked with all the S.H.I.E.L.D files back in the day, most of it had been classified by the time he was born, but he knew that whoever the poor guy had been there hadn’t been much of him left by the time he was rescued. Would they attempt to rescue him, afterwards? A Winter Soldier, a secret assassin, a tool, that was what he would become.

He wondered who the fourth was, only Teddy and Tommy had come in with him. The doctor had mentioned a fourth who was a candidate for the Winter Soldier project, a fourth Wanda Maximoff had given him. But who could it possibly be? Her brother? The doctor had mentioned her brother, that he’d had superspeed like Tommy. But that wasn’t likely Quicksilver had died a year before the Avengers Civil War, there was no way even Hydra could resurrect the dead. It could be no one he knew of, the Scarlet Witch had been rogue for as long as he knew, it could be someone rogue, someone he’d never heard of before. He didn’t think he’d be able to save them, whoever they were hopefully they would be able to forgive him for what he was going to do. He’d made his decision, now he just had to wait for the doctor to come back.

~Avengers~

The Cube, well it really was a giant cube, so no points for creativity there Wanda decided as she looked through the superpowered binoculars Fitz had come up with. She was laying on her ground in the middle of the Nevada desert  watching military vehicles going in and out of the military compound known as Area 51. Sam had burst into laughter when Wanda reported the coordinates of the Cube, incomprehensibly saying something about conspiracy theorist, she didn’t get it, and neither had Bucky. Natasha had only shrugged. It was Daisy who had explained it, according to conspiracy theorists, Area 51 was where the government held a top secret facility that held aliens there. Now it held aliens and super powered humans. “There’s only one way in or out that I can see.” she reported back.

“Can you teleport us in?” Daisy asked back over the comms.

“I think so.” They would all have to hold hands though, she needed to be able to connect to them all to teleport. It was a power that had developed later on as she manifested more abilities, one that she might have been able to use to save Pietro if she’d had it during the battle against Ultron. Not being able to save her brother had always been her biggest regret, one that still loomed over even after twenty years.

“Have I ever mentioned how cool your powers are?” Clint asked, Wanda rolled her eyes.

“Yes. Now we need to move in quickly. I have a bad feeling.”

~Avengers~

“I would like to see them first.” Billy requested of the doctor, he was surrounded by four men all armed to the hilt, he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to. The ear pieces were still there preventing him from being able to hear himself. But he didn’t care now, he knew when he was speaking, however loud it might be. If it annoyed them, well it was their fault they were on in the first place.

“Do you think that’s wise?” The doctor asked turning to face him. No of course it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but he wanted to see them one last time before he turned into something he wasn’t.

“I want to see them.” Billy said trying to put more force in a voice he couldn’t hear. The doctor nodded, and lead them down a side hallway just ahead of them.

“Tommy, you have a visitor.” Billy heard Tommy’s shouts of profanities as the metal door swung open.

“Billy.” Tommy said, he wasn’t bound to the wall, but a red laser wall prevented him from touching the walls or the doorway so he just ran around the small room appearing and then disappearing only a blur showing you where he was. “Whatareyoudoinghere.”

“I just wanted to see you.” Tommy skidded to a halt right in front of him.

“You made a deal with them.” He accused, “What did you trade. We don’t have information, are they letting you out?” Billy shook his head, unlike his friends he would never be let out.

“Its time to go.” The doctor said pulling Billy along with him.

“Comeback, comeback!” Tommy shouted. “Billywhatthehellareyoudoing?” One down, one left. Both were hard to say goodbye to. At least Tommy was okay, he looked uninjured if just bored. He wasn’t going to die of boredom, well Tommy might. He always came up with stupid, dangerous ideas when he was bored.

He was being led down another hall, this one only had one door on it unlike the others. When the door was opened he could see the blond figure strapped down to an operating table. He was at Teddy’s side in an instant. “Billy, is that you?” Teddy asked, blue eyes opening slightly. Billy nodded, cupping Teddy’s cheek. “How’d you get here, are we being rescued.” He shook his head.

“I love you.”

“Billy, what's going on.” Teddy tried to sit up, but the straps were too much. “Billy?” But the soldiers were dragging Billy out of the room now. “Billy!” Teddy shouted as the door swung shut behind them. Billy closed his eyes, blinking out the tears that were starting to form. He was doing this for them.

~Avengers~

They appeared into what looked like a storage closet. “Find me someone who’s mind I can read.” Wanda said quickly, her accent becoming more prominent. Bucky nodded, adjusting the shield on his arm.

“Lets go.” He orders, he almost sounds like Steve, but Steve would have given some pep talk about doing this together, Bucky’s never been very good a pep talks. He just likes to get in and get out. He doesn’t talk about Steve anymore, no more then she talks about the boys, but maybe with Billy and Tommy reentering their lives, he might. He doesn’t talk about the fact that he’s not really aging either, its been nearly twenty years since Steve died, but Bucky’s only aged about two years. Its the serum, Fitz and Simmons ran test on him about five years ago when it became really obvious. Wanda began to manipulate her own age at that point too not wanting Bucky to be left alone in a strange world by himself, her powers were growing, they had become more powerful than she had imagined, and there were things she could probably do that were scary and would make her the monster some already thought she was.

The hallway was empty when they opened the door, but none of them lowered their guard. With Bucky in the lead, and Daisy taking up the rear they made their way to the control room where they met real resistance. Before then their presence had largely gone unnoticed, but one of the guards managed to set off the alarms before taking him out. “You’ve got five minutes before we’re swarmed.” Wanda said to Bucky who was already at the computer. “Daisy, can you slow them down?” The darker girl nodded standing by the door. There was a light rumble as the ground began to shake a little.

“Found them.” Bucky said, “Floor six, Tommy is on Hall F, Teddy is on Hall D, and Billy is- hold on a second.” The former assassin frowned.

“What is it?” Wanda asked.

“Well it says Billy is on Hall A, but the security cameras don’t show him in there.” There was more typing on the computer, and Bucky’s frown began to deepen more and more. “Those son of bitches!”

“Bucky?” Wanda asked glancing nervously at the door.

“They’re doing a mind wipe.” Bucky said suddenly looking jumpy. “Billy’s been scheduled for a mind wipe, they’re going to turn him into a Winter Soldier, and he’s not the only one, a prisoner SGR17 is having one as well.” No. Wanda felt her power build up, the red tendrils swirling around her, she would not let them turn her son into an assassin to be used against her.

“Lets go get my boys.” Wanda said darkly, the red tendrils slamming into the computers and frying their circuits.

~Avengers~

He was taken to a very large room with two chairs with straps, a man was already strapped into one, and two very large machines behind them. Billy didn’t fight as they strapped him down as well, he glanced over to the other man. His eyes were closed, as if he was sleeping, his skin was deathly pale despite how well built he looked and his lips were tinted blue. He looked familiar to Billy though he couldn’t place how he knew him. The fourth person, the one he hadn’t been able to save. “Sir, there’s been a breach of perimeter.” A soldier said coming to stand by the doctor and handing him a pad.

“Well, well, well, mother bear has come to rescue her cubs.” The doctor said with some amusement. “Proceed with the procedure, we won’t let the Scarlet Witch and Captain America spoil our fun.” At the mention of Captain America the other man’s eyes opened wide revealing baby blue eyes that looked like Teddy’s, Billy’s heart twinged

“Bucky.” He whispered. But that was all the other man was able to save before plastic mouth guards were placed in their mouths. The other man began to struggle, Billy wanted to tell him not to, that it was pointless, there was no way his mother and Captain America would make it down here in time to save them, they’d save Tommy and Teddy though, so that was all that mattered to him.

“Put more restraints on him.” The doctor said to a nearby soldier. “We wouldn’t want our precious Summer Soldier to get away.” Billy watched as three soldiers restrained the other man, holding him down with all their might and they still weren’t able to contain him. The man was strong. He spit the mouth guard out.

“Bucky! Bucky! Wanda!” Billy gasped, this man knew his mother.

“Captain Rogers, you really must cease this useless fighting. Your friends will not find you. They will be taken by my soldiers and then we shall have the Winter Soldier once more as well.” The doctor said. Captain Rogers? As in Steve Rogers? The original Captain America, but he had died, killed on the steps of a courthouse while preparing to face trial. But Billy recognized him now, that was Steve Rogers, alive and kicking. Billy watched as the machine came down to cover Steve Roger’s head, a soldier shoving the mouth guard back in just in time. The man screamed and screamed, Billy’s heart rate began to speed up as he watched knowing that was going to happen to him next. That he had volunteered for this to save his friends. And then Rogers fell silent, and the machine on his chair began to descend on him. No one could save him now.

~Avengers~

Tendrils of red light shot out like shock waves knocking down the soldiers who were in front of them. They wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon, Wanda thought with a hint of pride. “Level Six here we are.” Daisy said. “Which halls?”

“D and F.” Bucky said, glancing around everywhere.

“I’ll go get Tommy, you two get Teddy.” Wanda said. Suddenly the halls were filled with loud screams, a man in desperate pain, Bucky stiffened. “Its okay, we’re going to rescue Billy.” She said trying to reassure her friend.

“It sounded like Steve,” Bucky said quietly. “I thought it was Steve for a moment.” They split, Wanda running down the hall trying to find Hall F, desperate to find her son.

“Tommy, Thomas!” she called, hitting a few more soldiers that got in her way with red tendrils of light. She came to a stop in front of a door on F Hall, there was thumping from inside. She pulled the door off the hinges, Tommy was inside, bouncing around the way Pietro used to inside that tiny cell in Sokovia, a wall the only thing separating the two of them. A red laser wall separated her from her son now, but in an instant it was gone.

“Who are you?” Tommy asked zipping out of the cell.

“Your mother.” She said quietly. “You look so much like him?”

“Like who?” She smiled as she watched the blur zipping around her.

“Like my brother Pietro.” She was glad she had chosen that to be his middle name. “We must hurry, Billy is in danger.”

“I saw him earlier. He came by to see me, was surrounded by guard and a freaky doctor that’s been experimenting on Teddy.” Tommy said zipping past her down the hall. She heard grunts of men, more soldiers who had come to stop them, but it sounded like Tommy was handling it. She ran following her son, though no where near as fast as he was. She shot out a red tendril as her son collapsed. “I feel weak.”

“You haven’t had much to eat have you? Speedsters have higher metabolisms than normal humans. Just slow down, walk. We’ll find the others and rescue Billy.” She ordered, Tommy nodded.

Bucky and Daisy were on either side of an injured Teddy holding him up when they met around C Hall. Both looked tired, and Daisy was limping slightly as they carried the young man. Bucky seemed distracted by something though. “Wanda,” Bucky said nearly dropping Teddy. He was looking down through a glass window on her other side. It was an observation window, below them looked to be a labratory of some kind with two people strapped down to chairs, a device placed over their heads. She could hear their faints screams.

“Oh God, Billy.” She gasped, one of the figures on the chairs was Billy. Bucky raised his shield.

“Back up.” Bucky ordered, and then ran right into the middle of the window raining glass down below as he used the shield to soften his blow and prevent himself from hitting the glass. Wanda placed Tommy down gently against the opposite wall before levitating herself down the hole in the window Bucky had made.

Bullets began to rain down on them from nearby soldiers. A doctor was shouting orders, probably the one Tommy had mentioned had been torturing Teddy. He was shouting to get the experiments out. “Steve?” Bucky asked, his shield almost dropping to the floor. Wanda gasped, red tendril stopping an incoming bullet, the man on the other chair was Steve Rogers not looking a day older than the day he’d died. “Steve!” But the two were carried out by soldiers too far away for either of them to reach. Wanda screamed in rage as a red shock wave emitted from her tearing apart medical equipment, weapons, light bulbs and even the glass above them, but not in time before the door slammed and Billy and Steve gone. Bucky ran after them, Wanda hot on his heels, but the doorway lead to a garage and a jeep was already pulling out. They were lost.

“No.” Wanda cried sinking to her knees. Gone, they were gone. Steve and Billy were gone. Bucky walked back into the room leaving her to grieve by herself. She hadn’t felt this amount of agony since she’d given the twins up. Now her youngest could be lost to her forever. Slowly she rose to her feet, she’d left Daisy to try and manage two teenage boys, both of whom were lost and tired and had been held captive for nearly a week and a half. She walked as if in a daze back into the laboratory, glass was everywhere as were broken wires and bodies. Bucky had the doctor up against the wall, his left hand around the doctor’s throat. Normally she would pull Bucky off him, but right now she couldn’t bring herself to care. _Do you know how it feels to get your heart ripped out? It felt like that._  

“Wanda,” Daisy said as she levitated up. “I’m sorry.”

“How  are they?” Wanda asked, both teenagers were sitting against the walls, their eyes closed, breathing shallow.

“I think they passed out.” Daisy said glancing back down to the laboratory where Bucky was. “Is he going to kill him?”

“I don’t care.” Wanda hissed checking over both boys. “Steve Rogers was the other person down there. Whatever they’ve done to Billy, they did to Steve, and Bucky had every right to want to know what happened to him.”

“Fuck.” Daisy cursed. “I’m going to contact Sam, see if he can get a quinjet to pick us up.”

~Avengers~

Wanda sat in between Teddy and Tommy waiting for one of them to wake up. She brushed silver hair out of Tommy’s face and watched as Teddy took deep ragged breaths. She had known him as an infant too, he’d lived across the street from them. It was so strange to think about that. Kate and Eli sat across from her, they were still a bit put out that they hadn’t been allowed on the mission to rescue their teammates, but Sam had felt it was for the best. They could stay here though, train become Avengers, you didn’t need to have superpowers to help people. Bucky stood in a dark corner, snarling at anyone who came too close. He had gotten the information he’d wanted out of the doctor though, how Steve had been there. He had been shot, but the EMTs who arrived on scene, the ones who had declared Steve dead had injected him with some kind of drug that slowed his heart rate down to barely nothing. The doctors at the hospital had believed Steve Rogers was dead, everyone had believed Steve Rogers was dead even Stark, but really Hydra had, had him. Frozen, on ice, waiting for the right time to revive him and use him against their enemies. It made her blood boil knowing that her friend and mentor had been alive and they hadn’t known to search. And she knew that it was nothing compared to what Bucky felt about Steve’s fake death, that was why he was snarling at everyone.

Billy was gone too, her youngest son, she was glad Tommy was safe though and relatively unharmed. Just malnourished and worn out. “What do we do?” Eli asked quietly.

“About Billy?” Wanda asked. “We wait, I guess, Hydra will rear its ugly head, they’ll use Billy to do something and then we find him and we find them.” They really were a hydra monster, cut off one head and two more would take its place. The only way to truly kill it was to to stab it in it’s heart.

“Steve will be there too.” Bucky said softly.

“M-Mom.” A raspy voice said, Wanda turned to see Tommy’s eyes fluttering open. “You said you were my mom.” Wanda nodded.

“I am, I gave birth to you. I love you so very much, Thomas. I’m sorry I allowed such awful people to take you.” She stroked his hair back again. Kate had told her about the Shepherds, what they’d been like, how they had treated Tommy. She’d given them one of the most precious things in her life and they’d treated him badly. She couldn’t forgive them for that, couldn’t forgive herself for allowing that to happen.

“Why?”

“It was so dangerous back then, we were on the run, our faces were still plastered all over the news. Hank Pym was helping us hide, but even then we lived in fear. I tried Tommy, I wanted to raise you and Billy, to be a good mother to you. You set the bed of your crib on fire one night you’d vibrated so fast. And I was scared, I didn’t want a life of being on the run for you or for Billy. So I gave you to what I thought would be good homes.” Tommy’s brown eyes relaxed but he remained quiet. Kate came to stand beside him, he took her hand.

“Where’s Billy?” His voice was quiet.

“Gone.”

**Author's Note:**

> Author goes and hides in a corner.  
> No actually I am going to go hide, school starts tomorrow and I feel vastly under prepared. There will be a third one, I will not leave you hanging, but I don't know when I'll end up writing it, hopefully before the end of September depending on how horrible my professors are with classwork.  
> About the non-aging thing, Steve was in ice for seventy years and did't age a bit. Ice will mummify you, but if you're alive you're probably going to look older. So I have a bit of a head cannon that the superserum also stops you from aging at the same rate, and so Bucky has a version of that super serum and so that is a side effect for him as well.  
> Anyway please leave a review tell if I'm a horrible human being or not. Thanks for reading.


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